Picking stations can be operated according to the goods-to-man principle. In that case, the goods or articles of an order are transported to the respective picking station, for which purpose they are usually brought in inside containers, on trays etc. At that location, they are removed from the so-called storage or product containers and placed into the corresponding containers, trays, etc. of an order, so-called order containers.
This process is usually repeated until the respective order or partial order is completed using the zone picking process.
In order to increase throughput, the worker usually picks a plurality of orders in parallel and so a plurality of order containers are kept in readiness in parallel in the picking station.
The picker can thus be shown by means of displays where the articles are to be placed. This is accordingly called “put-to-light.” If, in addition, a plurality of product containers are transported analogously to the picking station, a pick-to-light method can also be carried out and so the removal of articles can be simplified.
A put place is thus a place or area for order containers into which the goods/articles from the storage containers are correspondingly placed by the picker.
A put-to-light display is accordingly a display for the picker, to indicate which order containers the picker is to place the article just removed from the product container, or a plurality of articles or the packing unit, etc.
Conversely, the pick place is the place or area for a product container from which the picker removes the articles etc. A pick-to-light display is accordingly a display which displays to the picker the product container and/or possibly the articles and/or the quantity thereof for the picking step.
From EP 2 050 695 A1, EP 2 098 464 A1 and WO 2013/033743 A1 corresponding picking stations are known, in which a plurality of order containers are held in the picking station at the same time and are filled with articles from a central place with changing product containers. Although the presentation of a plurality of order containers reduces the demands placed on the sequence of product containers, this means that the picking stations are fitted with a connection to the central conveying system for each put place, which makes the structure complex and expensive as well as troublesome to maintain, and a lot of space is taken up. Since an order does not change its put place, the picking processes are distributed uniformly over all put places and the picker must cover relatively long distances.
Therefore, there continues to be a need for a simplified picking solution according to the goods-to-man principle, in which the structure of the picking stations is simplified and picking is made easier for the picker without reducing the throughput.